No Merits and Flaws for Wraiths?

[Dogstar]

One thing I've noticed in the Wraith 20 book is that there are no Merits or Flaws and they're not listed in character creation.

Is this because Wraiths are not meant to have merits/flaws or because the writers simply didn't include the option?

Are they available in older editions of Wraith?

[tasti man LH]

One thing I've noticed in the Wraith 20 book is that there are no Merits or Flaws and they're not listed in character creation.

Is this because Wraiths are not meant to have merits/flaws or because the writers simply didn't include the option?

I believe it's a similar situation to what happened to M20:

Book was getting too long, and something had to be cut, thus Merits and Flaws were chosen. The devs have promised that they'll get added back in with a later Wr20 supplement.

[Eldagusto]

Wait how do you handle languages if they don’t have merits and flaws? That’s the issue with putting languages in an optional system... it’s no longer optional if you want a game with bilingual PCs.

[Damian May]

Wait how do you handle languages if they don’t have merits and flaws? That’s the issue with putting languages in an optional system... it’s no longer optional if you want a game with bilingual PCs.

All wraiths are able to understand and communicate with all other wraiths, known mortal languages don't require point investment.

[Florin]

Wait how do you handle languages if they don’t have merits and flaws? That’s the issue with putting languages in an optional system... it’s no longer optional if you want a game with bilingual PCs.

I let the characters speak languages it makes sense for them to know. If your character was a Puerto Rican who grew up in New York City, go ahead and speak English and Spanish. If your character was from Astoria in NYC, then go ahead and speak Greek and English. If your character lived in Berlin, go ahead and speak English and German. It's not going to break anything.

[Eldagusto]

What’s stopping someone from saying they are a professor and knowing 20 languages for free. It’s better to include some system for this, whether just a background point or a knowledge dot.

All wraiths are able to understand and communicate with all other wraiths, known mortal languages don't require point investment.

It used to be that Wraiths spoke and could be understood by those they shared a paradigm with. I personally wasn’t a fan and wish they just had ghosts treat languages like the living, have the old ones learn modern languages or the other way around.

[Florin]

What’s stopping someone from saying they are a professor and knowing 20 languages for free. It’s better to include some system for this, whether just a background point or a knowledge dot.

What is the negative outcome from a character knowing 20 languages what you want to prevent by having as system for it?

[Eldagusto]

It’s a clear advantage. What’s the. What I’ve outcome of being a billionaire?

[Florin]

Being a billionaire means you have ready use of pretty much any kind of transportation, the ability bribe people, and social advantages just to name a quick few.

I can't think of one significant advantage of being able to speak 20 languages. If the ST doesn't want you to understand an NPC, they'll pick a language none of the PCs know. If they do, they'll pick a language the PCs know. You're just changing those lists if you speak more or fewer languages.

[Damian May]

Yeah....theres bugger all advantage for Wraiths....most are only going to want to interact with Quick that they know so they would already be able to speak to them.

[Dogstar]

How you treat languages is another of those things that's often better determined by the campaign rather than the rules. If you're running a cold war espionage game then the ability to understand Russian becomes a pretty big advantage, in other games much less so. No need to argue too much over it.

Also, subtle difference between Wraith and Mage - in Mage they mention Merits/Flaws whereas in Wraith there is no mention of it _at all_.

[Beelzebjörn]

Being a billionaire means you have ready use of pretty much any kind of transportation, the ability bribe people, and social advantages just to name a quick few..

... Except in Wraith you're a DEAD billionaire so the joke's on you AAAAHAHAHAHAA! Might be able to hitch a ride with the heir to your fortune though

As for languages, it's an easy enough solution to just offer up "Linguistics" as an Other Trait for those interested in buying it. Older Wraith books provide systems for the other merits and flaws which mostly translate seamlessly to W20, so you could use those, with languages as an added 1 point-merit (2 points to be fluent, and 3 to be fluent to the point where you can pass for a native speaker, including mastering dialects and local slang).